Mies, "Colonization and Housewifization"

            The author of this piece writes with a historical viewpoint, dealing with colonization of Caribbean and African natives.   She discusses slave labor and the weighing of whether or not slaves should be bred to produce more workers.   She gives grim examples of motherhood being forced upon slave women and what they did to counter it.   Also she contrasts the ability of the slave class to resist motherhood with the idea of motherhood as a natural vocation for the female members of the bourgeoisie.   Furthering that contrast is the discussion of marriage and the fact that, as slaves rejected marriage, and were also not seen as capable of being Christian, or even of the same species as Europeans, this encouraged Europeans to adopt a monogamous tradition of marriage.   The author brings to light the ideal existence the women of the Wolof tribe led and that their behavior and manners brought them to a level higher than that of the Europeans who traded with them, and places it in chronological context with the rest of the information presented.   The piece allows the reader to consider extreme opposites in the historical female roles that existed. -N.T.